


knock, knock, knock on your door

by perlaret



Category: Selfie (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 04:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3342863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/pseuds/perlaret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, he thinks ruefully, at least he still has his pants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	knock, knock, knock on your door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [florairmatylee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/florairmatylee/gifts).



Henry looks forward to the day he becomes a homeowner.

It's become something of a hobby, spending an evening checking the classifieds and truvia.com in search of the perfect future house. He has a folder of favorited properties in his browser bookmarks, and a hanging file full of clippings. He's done the math. He's micromanaged his credit score for years now. It's just a matter of saving up enough for a sizeable down payment at this point. Within the year, he should be good to go, and he can seek out his dream home.

The problem is: figuring out how he is going to survive for those twelve months, exactly.

The issue Henry has with living in an apartment complex is a simple one. There are too people stacked on top of each other, like sardines, except with less fundamental usefulness.

Sometimes, those people do incredibly inconsiderate things, such as blasting pop songs and singing along at top volume... at two in the morning.

Henry presses his pillow over his face, groans, and sternly reminds himself that there are serious social consequences for murder.

His last neighbor was an otherwise respectable old woman whose greatest claim to shame was the amount of money she spent at Bingo Bonanza each Saturday. Henry had been quite happy to exchange pleasantries with her in the hallway and ask after her grandchildren from time to time and otherwise joy the peace and quiet of having an unobtrusive person next door.

His current neighbor, on the other hand...

Henry has yet to meet her, but the lyrics of 'Oops I Did It Again' currently rattling themselves through his bedroom wall speak well enough for themselves. He hopes old Mrs. Harrison is resting in peace, because he apparently isn’t going to get that opportunity tonight.

"Enough!" he finally hisses, slamming his pillow onto the bed and sitting up. There's a brief scramble to find his slippers and his robe and then Henry is stalking out his front door and onto his neighbor's welcome mat, which doesn't actually say anything remotely close to 'welcome' -- it's designed in the form of a checklist, reading: KEYS? PANTS? DIGNITY?

The first time he'd seen it, Henry had found it a little alarming. Tonight, he has no trouble ignoring it (besides, he has all three, thank you very much) and goes straight for pounding on the front door. It takes a moment, but the music finally goes silent. He keeps knocking, scowl set on his face.

Henry usually prides himself on being an even-tempered and well-mannered human being. He believes in both respect and respectability. Henry is also at the end of his rope.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" comes the muffled complaint from within the apartment, but Henry doesn't let up until he hears the lock turning. He rocks back on his heels and folds his arms as the door opens, prepared to face this neighbor-turned nemesis.

Henry's not sure why he's surprised that she's so young, given her taste in music. She's somewhere in her twenties, tall and thin, with  red hair falling from a loose bun to messily frame her face and a smart phone in hand. She's wearing a forest green sweatshirt that proclaims: "NOT IRISH: KISS ME ANYWAY." and the remnants of her eye makeup is more than a little smudged.

"Wait, you're not the landlord," she says, perplexed.

"I am your neighbor," Henry says, remembering that he should be frowning harder. "And I'm extraordinarily tired of listening to your early 2000's pop music at two in the morning, when I would much rather be sleeping."

Her eyebrows crease and she gives him this incredulous little head shake, like he'd just spoken in a foreign language. "It's a Friday night," she tells him, like that's supposed to change things.

"That does not change the fact that sleep is a physical requirement for many people," Henry explains, taking care to enunciate. "Namely, myself. Your past-midnight pastimes are severely hindering that for me."

"So like," she says with exaggerated slowness, tapping her finger against her door impatiently, "are you basically just asking me to turn it down? Cuz I can do that, breaking my door down not required."

Henry grits his teeth in the best semblance of a smile he can muster, which, given the hour, probably is not all that noteworthy an attempt. "I would appreciate that. Greatly."

"Um, sure. Whatever," she says, distracted already by an alert from her phone. Henry figures that he's done the best he can do for the night and hopes that it's sufficient. Otherwise, maybe it will be best to let the landlord do the dirty work.

"Thank you. Good night," he mutters, because he's irritated, but he's still well-mannered, god damn it, and turns back for his door.

The problem is, when he tries to turn the handle, it rattles but doesn't give. He tries again to no avail.

"Holy shit, did you lock yourself out?"

She sounds way too pleased at his expense and Henry closes his eyes and lets his forehead hit the door jam, all of the self-importance leaving him in a rush, like air from a balloon. Tonight is simply not his night. He can picture exactly where he left the keys: in their little bowl on the console table near the door, right where he always leaves them. He had forgotten them in his haste, as well as the fact that he had only unlocked the deadbolt, not the one on the knob.

"I might have," he admits, feeling his dignity fade away into the night as well. Well, he thinks ruefully, at least he still has his pants. “...Would you mind if I used your phone?”

“You mean after you like, supes ruined my midnight jam with your grumpy fit?” she asks, leaning against her door and giving him a skeptical look. “Besides, who you gonna call?”

“The landlord,” Henry says, feeling like this night could not get any worse. He can already see how it would all play out. She was going exact her revenge and leave him out here in the hallway and he was going to have to ruin his slippers walking to the leasing office, where he would have to wait until morning to get back into his apartment. Resignation swept over him, as dreary as  L.A. smog on a hot summer day.

“Wrong answer!” she huffs, and Henry gives her a baffled look. “You were supposed to say  _Ghostbusters_ , dude. Isn’t that your era? Are you really that much of a drag? That was  _such_  an obvious opening.”

Henry finds himself nearly at a loss for words. “I mean, it kind of is but… is that a no, then?”

She rolls her eyes like he’s said something completely idiotic. (Henry definitely hasn’t had enough sleep for this, of this he’s very sure.)

“I don’t normally lend anyone my phone, but you know what, fine. I’ll make an exception this time, but just don’t do that creepy thing where you’re actually calling yourself so you can have my number. That trick is so last year, and so tacky.”

“You’ve had people do that to you?” Henry asks. "That's... incredibly inappropriate."

“I guess I’m a hot commodity,” she says with a shrug. “Some dudes are the worst, you know? But, boom, phone unlocked. Do _your_ worst.”

“Thanks,” Henry says wonderingly and, walking over, accepts the phone. She even pulled up the landlord in her contacts, from the looks of it, filed away as “Mr. OLD Man”. It’s ridiculous and entirely irreverent and, strangely enough, it makes him grin. He glances back up to his new neighbor and finds she’s watching him, head tilted and eyebrow raised. “I’m Henry, by the way. Henry Higgs.”

“Oh. Eliza Dooley,” she says, gesturing at herself with a little ‘ta-da’ flair. She's eased up, her earlier annoyance with him fading away. Eliza gives him a once over and then her voice conspiratorially. “And you know, if you’d led with that smile, I totally would have turned down my music for you. Girls totally like nice older guys, y’know? For the record.”

“Uh, noted,” Henry says, blinking. There’s no way he’s reading this right. Cute twenty-something girls definitely do not flirt with him, let alone at 2am in his apartment hallway, as a matter of course, and it’s certainly not happening now. Mentally shaking himself, he quickly dials the number on the screen and puts the phone to his ear.

It rings three times and then goes to voicemail. Henry swears, sighs, then leaves a message.

“Tough luck,” Eliza says, taking her phone back. She gives it a critical look, then wipes the screen off against the side of her hoodie. “You gonna camp out here all night?”

“Seems that way,” Henry sighs, rubbing at his temple.

“Too bad you were hating on Britney,” she muses. “I can’t let people with bad taste in music into my apartment. It’s a civil rights thing.”

“Civil rights?” Henry repeats, baffled. She nods and, maddeningly, doesn’t offer any further explanation. Henry decides he probably doesn’t want one (because for one, this night has already taken enough of a turn for the inexplicable) and decides to move on to the point. “Never mind, but may I point out that I said nothing to the detriment Britney Spears. My primary point of concern was definitely the hour at which she was being played, and that alone.”

“So you _are_ a Britney fan,” Eliza crows, breaking into a huge grin. _“Ha!_ Called it, like, 5 minutes ago. Come in, Mr. Grumpypants Neighbor. I’ll make coffee.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” he reminds her.

“But _coffee_ ,” Eliza insists, opens the door wider, and gives him an expectant look.

Henry pauses for a moment, more than a little thrown by the sudden change in tone, as well as the eerie feeling that this girl has somehow intuited the not-short-live crush he might have had on the celebrity in question in his late teenage years. There are definitely warning signs. But on the other hand, his only other option is to sit outside his front door with not even his dignity for company, so his wildcard of a new neighbor definitely seems like the wiser bet.

“Alright. Coffee it is,” Henry agrees, and tentatively steps through Eliza Dooley’s front door.

Maybe the next year wouldn't be so bad after all.


End file.
